To Heal a Broken Mind
by Ratchet's Apprentice 88
Summary: Bucky Barnes has a chance to get his memories back, but it won't be easy. Not even close. It'll be stressful and painful, and the Winter Soldier will need to learn to trust the people he now calls his team.


**Helooooooo fellow fanfictioners! I can't believe that it's been so long since I've written anything, but this little plot bunny has been bothering me for a while now, so I hope you enjoy!**

**P.S. I hope to be updating a few of my other stories very soon as long as time allows. In order of intended update, the stories I hope to post new chapters for.  
1\. Back to Square One -**_Avengers**  
2\. **_**Babysitting -**_Transformers  
_**3\. Old Friends, New Love** _-Avengers_  
4.** In This City, I found Her** _-Avengers_  
5.** You Need Me, I Need You** _-Supernatural_

* * *

The Winter Soldier lay unconscious in the Avenger's Tower infirmary with his best friend stationed in the chair next to his bed, keeping vigil watch. It started off like any other day, until something at breakfast had triggered a relapse and Bucky went berserk. Steve didn't understand what was happening. It had been six months since he had gotten Bucky back and they had moved into the tower, and in those six months, Bucky had been getting better. Little by little, the relapses and panic attacks became less frequent, it had become easier to bring him back from a flashback, and his memories of the 40's came in less violent and upsetting waves. He had gone almost a month without a problem and slowly, his Bucky's confidence started building again. That was, however, until just two weeks ago, he had another relapse at dinner. Thor had dropped a glass and the sound had startled him so badly that he grabbed his steak knife and held it like he was ready for an enemy attack. When Steve placed a hand on his shoulder to calm him down, he flipped. It took Steve, Thor, and Tony in his suit to safely get him into the panic room (aka, the Hulk-Out room) so that he could come down from his relapse without hurting someone else or himself. Almost an hour later, Steve, who was waiting outside the door the whole time, decide Bucky was calm enough and entered the room to let him out. The whole ordeal had done a number on Bucky's confidence in how his condition was progressing, though Steve assured his best friend that it was just one time and that he was still getting better, but that was only the beginning.

Over the next two weeks, Bucky started having panic attacks again. Everything was gradually getting worse. Panic attacks, painful memories, flashbacks, relapses, they were all getting more frequent again, and when Bucky went searching for answers, Steve didn't even know where to look.

The relapse at breakfast just that morning had been the worst so far. It was the first one in almost four months that Bucky actually started speaking in Russian. He started to attack everyone that got too close to him and after nearly half an hour, they decided there was no calming him down or getting him to the panic room, so they were forced to sedate him. That had been four hours ago, and Bucky still slept soundly in the infirmary.

Steve was in the midst of pulling a blanket over Bucky's unconscious form when there was a knock on the door.

"Come on in." Steve called.

At the door was Bruce with a file in hand. "Hey Steve" said the Doctor, making his way to super soldier's side.

"Hey Bruce" Steve sighed, not taking his eyes off Bucky. "Can I do something for you?"

"Actually," Bruce began slowly, "I have some information about Bucky that you might want to know."

This spiked Steve's interest. "What is it?" he asked, sitting up more alert in his chair.

"We ran some tests after one of last week's…episodes… and some of the results are a little interesting. Well, more than a little interest actually."

"What is it? What's wrong with Bucky?" Steve pushed, more than slightly concerned.

It was Bruce's turn to sigh. "Nothing's wrong per say." The doctor pulled up another chair and sat down next to the captain. "Look, Steve, we tested, and tested, retested, and then tested again. Tony and I wanted to be sure before we said anything, but all signs point to it. We compared his blood and yours and from what we can tell, Bucky has a rudimentary version of the serum in him."

Dr. Banner waited for it to sink in, before starting up again. "There's SHIELD documentation on the experiment done on you, but none regarding Bucky. Can you think of any time when Bucky may have gotten the serum?"

Steve was lost in thoughts of the past, going over every detail of what he knew happened to Bucky. "_Zola_" he said quietly under his breath, still not 100% back from his memories.

"What?" Bruce asked.

"Zola. Armin Zola." Steve said. "Back in the war, the 107th was captured by HYDRA. Bucky was part of it. When I found him, he was in some kind of lab. They were doing some kind of testing on him. Zola probably developed some kind of serum and tested it on Buck. My God Bruce, he was a mess. He was laying on some kind of table, couldn't even stand up right. I never wanted to think about what they did to him, I guess now we know."

Bruce gave Steve's shoulder a comforting squeeze before opening the folder and flipping to a certain page before handing it to Steve. "The second thing I wanted to tell you."

Steve looked at the page to find two glossy, strangely colored images. Brain scans? "Whose brain scans are these Bruce?"

Bruce pushed his glasses higher up his nose. "These are Bucky's. Now this one," he said, pointing to the image on the top of the page, "is the scan that was taken when Bucky was first evaluated six months ago. This one," now pointing to the bottom picture, "is one we took last week. As you can see by the coloring, the first image shows severe damage to his brain as a result of HYDRA wiping his mind and brainwashing him. If you look at the one we took last week, you can see, a good bit of the damage is gone. Tony and I have reason to believe that since the version of the serum in you enhances your immune system and amps up your healing, the version Bucky has might be doing the same thing. His brain is trying to heal itself. He was getting better when the relapses and panic attacks started going away, but I signs point to the next phase of his recovery being everything coming back full force until he hits the final stage. We went over the data and figured out a concept as to how the rest of the healing is going to go. While we can't do anything about the nightmares or the PTSD, we think that when his brain heals, he'll get his memories back."

Steve was speechless. There was a chance that Bucky might get his memories back. That was a huge step in the right direction. "What's the rest look like?"

Bruce took back the file and set it on the table next to them. He looked back at Steve solemnly. "It's a little …messy. You see, for his mind to heal, first it's got to get the information straight, you know, sort it out and determine what's from what and from when. While this is happening, he'll probably be unconscious. It takes a lot and his body will put everything it's got into doing so. It'll kind of seem like a nightmare. A nightmare that lasts a few days that is. Next, his brain will have to process that information. This is where things will get a little more aggressive. As the information pieces itself together, it'll put his mind under a lot of stress. We think the most likely thing to happen will be seizures. The final stage is the quietest one. It'll just be his mind deciding the final details. He'll probably just be asleep and that's all. I wish we could make it easier, but his healing is inevitable and I don't think it's wise to mess with his brain anymore, and there is one more thing Steve."

Bruce took a breath. "There's a chance that his brain will sort the memories in a way that it permanently destroys his old memories and he could end up either the Winter Soldier, Russian assassin again, or it could leave him totally blank."

Steve didn't speak for a while, too lost in thought about what he just heard. Finally, he spoke. "I'll tell him when he wakes up."

Another two hours later, the sedative finally wore off and Bucky was faced with the news he didn't fully understand due to his lack of memory. Though he did understand one thing. No matter how far away, no matter how long ago, HYDRA would never truly stop effecting him. Never stop causing him pain.

* * *

**Sooooooo?! Whadya think? Like it? Love it? Hate it? Wanna kill it with fire? Remember peoples, reviews are love, reviews are love! See you all next time, but for now, this is RA88, singing off with a smile :-)**


End file.
